Thought i'd post up a little Detailing guide as I know we all like to have our cars looking good, it doesn't cover everything but will give you a good summary of the stages you can put the car through and why they are done. What's recommended and what's not. Ultimately to give you the best and safest finish for your car. The order is the same for all cars, just remove the steps you're not doing.
PRE-TREATMENT
CLAY PAINTWORK
RECOMMENDATIONS
Tools (2-3x Buckets (with grit guards), lots of microfiber towels, some just for the wheels and separately the glass and the best ones (I use Dodo Juice Supernatural towels for the paint), you can never have enough towels, also big drying towel, assorted brushed for wheels and arches, assorted microfiber pads for paintwork (pre-wax and sealant application) microfiber wash mitt or similar – The absolute best Wash Mitt IMHO is the Dodo Juice - The Wookie's Fist – I even have a dog comb to brush mine out after use, J, snow foam kit and power washer with snow foam attachment.connections)
Snow Foam (Meguiars Hyper wash)
Shampoo (Dodo Juice - Born to be Mild, Sour Power, Supernatural, Basics of Bling) – Basically any Dodo Juice Shampoo – favourite is Born to be Mild.
All Purpose Cleaner (Autosmart G101) – can use diluted and used on the interior as well (great product)
Pre-Wax Cleaner (Werkstat Prime Acrylic – Dodo Juice Lime Prime)
Wheel Cleaners (Meguiar's Wheel Brightener, CarPro - Iron X, Valet Pro - Bilberry Wheel Cleaner, Chemical Guys - Orange Degreaser) - I use them all.
Wheel Protection (Jetseal 109 – Was originally meant as a paint sealant (like the Werkstat Jett Trigger) but I use the Werkstat now and use the sealant properties of 109 on the wheels instead, but you can also use it on the paint. (Not as sharp as the Werkstat though)).
Wax (Dodo Juice – All types, best is Supernatural if you have money to burn)
Sealant (Werkstat Acrylic Jett Trigger, Poorboy's EX-P Sealant, Blackfire All Finish Paint Protection). Werkstat is my favourite
Clay Bars (Dodo Juice Grey/Purple, Sonus, 3M, Blackfire)
Pro Detailing Products (use with caution)
Autosmart Tardis
Iron X
Websites I’ve personally used many times for detailing products: -
http://www.polishedbliss.co.uk/
https://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/
This is my 530D before I got my S15, can't find any pics of me cleaning the 15
PREPPING FOR THE WHEEL STAGE
Iron X Product
PRE-TREATMENT
- If the car has a coating of bugs on the front, best to pre-treat this area with (e.g. Chemical Guys – Bug Bugger) – softens the bugs in prep for the next stage (leave for 1-2 mins)
- Open fuel filler flap, spray car bottom to top and leave for 5 mins (Once you have the first snow foam applied, using a small brush and run it along all windows gaps and panel gaps and filled cap area) - Snow Foam (e.g. Meguiars Hyper Wash)
- This Snow Foam (pre-wash) stage is designed to remove all major contamination from the car and paintwork, the concept is to do as much actual cleaning without you having to touch the car – the more you touch the more your likely to actually create swirls and damage to the finish)
- If I’m going to Snow Foam in the first place I will usually perform 2 Foams and 1 Rinse (foam-rinse-foam) leave the foam on the car as initial lubrication for the first contact wash. I sometimes do the wheels after the first snow foam and rinse and then once the wheels are finished do the second snow foam in readiness for the contact wash.
- Tires first – Use APC (All purpose cleaner) – e.g. Autosmart G101 (best all purpose cleaner I’ve used) spray tires and scrub.
- Rinse Wheels
- Clean Wheels – Use Wheel cleaner - e.g. Meguiars Wheel Brightener - leave 30secs to soak (do one at a time, don’t spray all and leave, ever!!)
- Attack wheels with assorted brushes until done. (use small brush for nuts)
- Rinse
- If you have tar deposits these won’t come off with regular cleaning, use Autosmart Tardis, safely melts of the tar, honeydew, bugs, rinse. (I use Tardis on the paint as well as the wheels)
- For a super wheel clean use Iron-X, this removes Iron contamination (turn red in contact with Iron – you will be amazed at how much contamination you have) - rinse (i've used this stuff on the paint work as well, just be careful). If you have a chrome finish only use ph netural products.
- This is the first physical wash stage on the car and is done using two buckets (with grit guards ideally), one is the wash bucket (with shampoo in) and one is the rinse bucket (just clean water).
- Load your wash mitt with Shampoo (wash bucket) and wash one area of the car at a time, rinse and clean mitt using rinse bucket and grit guard, now re-load mitt with wash bucket shampoo, repeat
- The idea is not to use a dirty (grit/contaminated) mitt back onto your car without cleaning it first and to limit the contamination from the rinse bucket and the wash bucket) IT WORKS.
- I usually have a third bucket for the wheels as well (be prepared)
- Once you have finished the contact wash perform a thorough rinse. (Repeat contact wash/rinse if needed)
- Tip - Use an open ended hose for the very final rinse, the water will 'sheet' off the paintwork and you'll have a much easier job drying it. Use a regular power wash and you'll have 'spotting' everywhere and it's more effort.
- If you find near the wheels or anywhere for that matter you have tar spots, you won’t easily remove these, you need to use a Pro-detailing product like Autosmart Tardis (stinks and don’t drink it) use correctly will remove all your hard to remove contamination.
CLAY PAINTWORK
- Use a soft clay and work in a small area with lots of clay lube like Dodo Juice – Born Slippy or Meguiars Last Touch
- Do the whole car (can take awhile but this is a 6-12month step, not a routine one)
- Clay the glass as well (careful with the trim) use a stronger clay if you have it on the glass.
- Strong clay is great for removing any overspray you find in panel gaps or glass.
- Rinse car of residue
- At this stage I usually use a Pre-Wax Cleaner – these have the job of providing a little swirl removal (due to very small abrasives) and also really deep cleaning the paint, important for a great finish.
- Recommended are Werkstat Prime/Strong and Dodo Juice (Lime Prime) – Werkstat is great stuff.
- Use a foam pad and work in a small area at a time, wipe residue with seperate towel. (can take ages but results are worth it)
- I’m not going to comment on this stage, if you get to the point you want to buy a Rotary or Dual Action polisher, pads and compound, you’re beyond this guide.
- If you’re not doing a machine polish and you want to hide (not remove) some of the swirls you can use what’s known as a Glaze (Poorboys White Diamond etc), personally you’re better off with a DA polisher and some pre-wax cleaner on it for light swirl removal, I haven’t found glazes to be that good at hiding the swirls and that’s all they do.
- It’s a common mistake that we think we need to polish our cars all the time, unless you are machine polishing we don’t; we just need to deep clean and protect. The protection stage and pre-wax cleaner stage will give us all the ‘polish’ we need.
- There are two options for protecting the nice clean paint work you’ve been slaving over.
- Wax or Sealant
- Both do a similar job, Wax provides a hard layer of wax to protect the paint from the environment and also gives a nice warm, reflective finish on the paint.
- Sealants are usually acrylic polymers that are used to provide a synthetic coating on the paint to protect it from the environment, sealant give a more sharp/cold look compared to Wax, on the S15 While Pearl – Werkstat Jett Trigger is awesome (Werkstat Jeff Trigger is a polyethylene-acrylic nano-scale polymer Sealant)
- Some people do both, seal first and then wax (but not the other way around usually)
- Its horses for courses, Wax and Sealant serve a similar purpose (so you can choose based on the finish you want) Wax is always a softer/warmer effect; sealants are quite clinical in the look, sharper.
- For the Sealant I usually lay down 2-3 coats, 30 mins between each
- For the Wax usualy 1-2 coats depending and again probably 1-2 hours wait between coats to allow the wax to cure, on expensive waxes there is sometimes a phenomena called ‘gassing’ and this happens hours after waxing so additional buffing is required (makes the wax go slights cloudy)
- Use Jetseal 109 on the wheels as protection, nano scale polymer sealant is better in my opionion than wheel wax.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Tools (2-3x Buckets (with grit guards), lots of microfiber towels, some just for the wheels and separately the glass and the best ones (I use Dodo Juice Supernatural towels for the paint), you can never have enough towels, also big drying towel, assorted brushed for wheels and arches, assorted microfiber pads for paintwork (pre-wax and sealant application) microfiber wash mitt or similar – The absolute best Wash Mitt IMHO is the Dodo Juice - The Wookie's Fist – I even have a dog comb to brush mine out after use, J, snow foam kit and power washer with snow foam attachment.connections)
Snow Foam (Meguiars Hyper wash)
Shampoo (Dodo Juice - Born to be Mild, Sour Power, Supernatural, Basics of Bling) – Basically any Dodo Juice Shampoo – favourite is Born to be Mild.
All Purpose Cleaner (Autosmart G101) – can use diluted and used on the interior as well (great product)
Pre-Wax Cleaner (Werkstat Prime Acrylic – Dodo Juice Lime Prime)
Wheel Cleaners (Meguiar's Wheel Brightener, CarPro - Iron X, Valet Pro - Bilberry Wheel Cleaner, Chemical Guys - Orange Degreaser) - I use them all.
Wheel Protection (Jetseal 109 – Was originally meant as a paint sealant (like the Werkstat Jett Trigger) but I use the Werkstat now and use the sealant properties of 109 on the wheels instead, but you can also use it on the paint. (Not as sharp as the Werkstat though)).
Wax (Dodo Juice – All types, best is Supernatural if you have money to burn)
Sealant (Werkstat Acrylic Jett Trigger, Poorboy's EX-P Sealant, Blackfire All Finish Paint Protection). Werkstat is my favourite
Clay Bars (Dodo Juice Grey/Purple, Sonus, 3M, Blackfire)
Pro Detailing Products (use with caution)
Autosmart Tardis
Iron X
Websites I’ve personally used many times for detailing products: -
http://www.polishedbliss.co.uk/
https://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/
This is my 530D before I got my S15, can't find any pics of me cleaning the 15
PREPPING FOR THE WHEEL STAGE
Iron X Product
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